The internet has essentially taken over our lives. We no longer use it just to look up information or connect with others—nowadays, we do everything from our banking to ordering dinner through it. But how dependent are Aussies on it, exactly?
To peer into their habits in this domain, we’ve searched the web far and wide to fetch you the latest and most relevant internet usage statistics, putting together the only online article you’ll ever need to read on this topic.
So let’s get right down to it, shall we?
Aussie Internet Stats That Cast a Wide Net
- 91% of Aussies are internet users.
- As of February 2022, 55.41% of internet traffic in Oz was accessed from computers.
- The average mobile download speed in Australia in July 2022 was 161.61 Mbps.
- In the last quarter of 2021, Australians downloaded 10.7 million Terabytes of data.
- As of February 2022, Australian internet users spent an average of over 6 hours and 13 minutes a day online.
- 35% of Aussies use 5 or more types of devices to connect to the internet as of June 2021.
- Over half of Australia’s internet traffic in September 2022 came from Google Chrome.
- 73% of Australian internet-using households have an NBN connection.
- In 2021, 81% of Aussies used their mobile phones to access the internet multiple times a day.
- 19.85 million Australians are using the internet to pay for something.
General Internet Use Statistics
1. 91% of Aussies are internet users.
(Statista) (Statista)
As of February 2022, there are 23.6 million internet users in Australia, increasing from 22.8 million users in 2021. The number of active internet users is likely reaching market saturation levels, with the internet penetration rate in Australia inching up from 87% in 2019 to 89% in 2021. Actually, the number of internet users is slowly growing since 2015.
2. 55% of Australians could no longer imagine their life without the internet.
(Statista)
Over half of Aussies between the ages of 16 and 64 say they can’t live without everyday net usage anymore. Moreover, 52% feel it’s important for them to have uninterrupted mobile internet access. It’s a good thing, then, that 50% agree that they get good mobile network coverage in their area, while 23% care about having access to the latest cellular network technology (5G).
3. As of February 2022, 55.41% of internet traffic in Oz was accessed from computers.
The latest Internet traffic statistics from February 2022 show that more than half of it is accessed via laptops and desktops. As the next most popular device, mobile phones are used for 39.88% of internet traffic Down Under, followed by tablets with 4.68%, and other devices with 0.03%.
4. The average mobile download speed in Australia in July 2022 was 161.61 Mbps.
These devices have become more accessible nowadays as there’s an option for getting refurbished ones too.
Regarding the different types of internet connections in Australia, the mobile internet download speed far outstripped that of fixed broadband, which stood at 87.2 Mbps in July 2022. However, the average fixed broadband upload speed was better at 29.44 Mbps than that on mobile at 17.96 Mbps.
5. In the last quarter of 2021, Australians downloaded 10.7 million Terabytes of data.
(Internet activity report)
The total data downloaded in December 2021 noticed a 13% increase from the 9.5 million TB downloaded during the same time the previous year. NBN services still have the highest volume downloaded in Australia, with 86%. Next are mobile services with 9% and non-NBN broadbands with 5% of the total data downloaded.
6. The average data downloaded per user with an NBN connection is 409GB per month.
The latest Internet activity report from Australia Competition and Consumer Commission shows that the average data downloaded is continuously growing thanks to the unlimited NBN plans of internet service providers in Australia. A typical Aussie NBN user downloaded 361 GB of monthly data in June 2021.
As for the non-NBN fixed internet services, the statistics show that they download less monthly data per user, counting 346GB in the last quarter of 2021. HFC users download an average of 383 GB per month, fiber internet users 420GB, DSL network 302GB, and satellite users download the least data per month with only 156GB.
7. 79% of Aussie adults reported use of internet-connected smart devices in 2021.
(Statista)
Internet use statistics tell us that in 2021, almost 80% of Australians have smart devices connected to the internet. The most used brand for smart home management in 2022, is Samsung, followed by Google Nest, Philips, and Brilliant.
79% of Australians use internet connections for smart devices, mainly for entertainment, 21% use smart lightning, followed by 21% who connected via a wearable device, while 26% of Aussies use smart appliances like robot cleaners and smart microwaves. On the contrary, 16% said they didn’t use such internet-enabled gadgets.
8. As of February 2022, Australian internet users spent an average of over 6 hours and 13 minutes a day online.
(We Are Social)
Australia’s internet subscribers aged 16-64 spent the same time on the internet daily as in 2021. Based on these internet statistics, the Australian population spends over one-quarter of every day “ensnared” in the World Wide Web. Aussies spend the most time watching TV, with 3 hours and 44 minutes daily, which is 6.7% more than the previous year.
9. Millennials are the biggest internet users in Australia.
Judging by the latest data, it’s 25 to 34 year-olds who are the biggest active net users. More specifically 3.76 million interviewees from this age group stated they used the internet.
They are followed by 35 to 44-year-olds (older Millennials) and those in the 45 to 54 age bracket—3.27 million and 3.15 million respondents in these age groups use the net.
As expected, older Aussies are not such big fans of the world wide web. 2.68 million of those between 55 and 64 years of age use the internet as do 2.9 million of those aged 65 and over. Seeing as how the average retirement age in Australia has been increasing slowly over the years and more and more people are using the net for work, internet usage among older generations might also go up.
Surprisingly, though, the youngest generations were the least likely to go online as only 2.33 million of those surveyed were in the 18 to 24 age group.
10. 35% of Aussies use 5 or more types of devices to connect to the internet as of June 2021.
(Australian Communications and Media Authority)
Compared to the data from June 2020, when 46% of households use five or more devices to access the internet, the percentage decreased in the following year. The June 2021 numbers show that 22% used four devices, 21% used three, 15% accessed the internet from two devices, while 7% of households used the internet on a single device.
Search Engine Statistics
11. 98% of Aussies used a search engine in 2022.
Search engine statistics in Australia are pretty straightforward—pretty much everyone uses these bad boys. For comparison, 61% of Ozzies said in a survey that they’d visited an online store in the previous four weeks. Also, 61% had been on social media sites and apps.
The rate of adults who had watched videos on websites and apps like YouTube was 58%, whereas 40% had checked out specific companies’ web pages and applications. In addition, 38% of the respondents had consumed news on dedicated sites and apps, while 18% had read blogs and 16% newsletters.
12. The most used search engine in Australia until May 2022 is Google, with 89% of the survey respondents using it.
What are the biggest search engines in Australia? The SEO statistics from a survey conducted in 2022 reveal that most Australians use Google as their primary search engine. The runner-ups are Bing and Yahoo, with 22% and 21%, respectively. Other search engines used by Aussies are
- DuckDuckGo – 11%
- Search.com –11%
- Ask.com – 8% and
- AOL – 7%
Furthermore, 90.23% of desktop search traffic in the country in April 2021 originated from Google, which is expected since it’s the search engine with the biggest market share in the world. These devices have also become more accessible nowadays as there’s an option for getting refurbished ones too.
13. Over half of Australia’s browser internet traffic in September 2022 came from Google Chrome.
(StatCounter)
An overview of the market share of browsers on the continent in September 2022 suggests that 51.5% of all internet traffic came from Chrome, which is lower than the August numbers showing 53.8% of traffic coming from Chrome.
Far behind it was Safari with 33.3% in September 2022, whereas Microsoft Edge was a distant third with 6.7%. Firefox has 3.4% of the browser market share, Samsung Internet 3.1%, and Opera had 1%. Lastly, Mozilla and IE had less than 1%.
Internet Service Provider Statistics in Australia
14. 73% of Australian internet-using households have an NBN connection.
As for the Non-NBN connections, 8% used wireless broadband, 3% had ADSL, mobile broadband connections were also 3%, while only 1% of households had a cable home internet connection. According to the How we use the internet report, only 9% of Australian households had no internet access as of June 2021.
15. 29% of home internet connections in Australia in 2021-2022 were from Telstra.
Australian internet statistics show that Telstra was the ISP of choice of nearly one-third of adults who had internet access at home in 2021-22, while Optus was second with 14%. TPG and Aussie Broadband had a 9% market share, iiNet and Dodo 7%, Belong 6%, whereas Foxtel and Vodafone matched up with 4%. iPrimus had 2% of all internet subscribers, SpinTel 1%, while all other Australian internet companies got smaller pieces of this pie than them.
16. 88% of Aussie Broadband customers were satisfied with their internet services as of September 2021.
Customer satisfaction data on the best internet service provider in Australia in 2021 show that Aussie Broadband was convincingly the winner of the Internet Service Provider (ISP) of the Month Award, far ahead in the ratings of other Australian internet companies.
IPrimus scored 80%, Belong had 79% satisfied customers, Vodofone 78%, TPG and Extel had a 77% customer satisfaction rating. Up next came iNet with 76%, Optus with 75% and Telstra with 74% satisfied users.
17. The average monthly cost of an internet connection in Australia in 2021 was $71.
(Canstar Blue)
For those who are not satisfied with their telco, read our guide on How to Cancel Telstra Internet.
Australian households pay an average of $852 yearly for their broadband plans. WA and TAS users pay the highest internet prices in Australia—an average of $73. Victorian and Qld online users are close behind with $72, while those in NSW pay the national average.Meanwhile, the residents of South Australia fork over the lowest monthly average amount of cash for an NBN plan—$68.
Mobile Internet Statistics
18. Oz is on track to have 23.21 million mobile internet users by 2025.
The facts and figures on mobile internet usage in Australia tell us that in 2021, the country had 21.57 million such users and 34 million mobile broadband connections. Both numbers are set to rise steadily during the next quadrennial, with the latter gradually turning into 35.76 million.
19. In 2021, 81% of Aussies used their mobile phones to access the internet multiple times a day.
(Statista, We are Social)
Smartphone usage in Australia is pretty intense since more than 80% of Ozzie adults connect to the internet through their phones daily, while 2% did so only once a week. A minuscule 1% did so only once a month and another 1% even less often than that, while 7% never did. The overall number of cellular mobile connections in Australia has reached 31.89 million.
20. Only 16% of Australians use their entire monthly mobile data.
(Statista, Statista)
The latest survey from 2022 indicates that 84% of Australians don’t use the mobile data included in their plans. 54% of them have stated that they usually have a lot of unused MB at the end of the month, and 30% use almost the entire internet allowance each month. Moreover, 46% have plans with a limited amount of mobile data, and only 32% have unlimited data on their mobile devices.
Online Activities Statistics
21. Emailing was the most common internet activity among Aussies in 2021.
According to a 2021 survey on the most popular internet activities among adults in Australia, around 98% answered that they went online to access their emails. Furthermore, 96% browsed the web, 92% did online banking, 90% were watching videos, 85% accessed the news, whereas 85% shopped online. Nearly three-quarters i.e. 73%, posted or engaged with online content, and 64% listened to audio.
Given the pandemic, it’s unsurprising that some of the most popular uses of the internet among Ozzies were video conferencing or calling with 64%, working from home with 45%, telehealth consulting with 41%, as well as selling goods and services and studying remotely with 37% and 32%, respectively.
Only 16% of people went online to get legal, financial or similar consulting, while 21% did so to purchase lottery tickets and 11% to gamble.
22. Of all websites, Aussies spent the most time on TikTok.
(We are Social)
According to website usage statistics from February 2022, TikTok commandeered 23.4 hours spend a month, making it the most popular social media in Australia. The second most used website in Australia is Facebook, with 17.6 hours a month. With 54% of Aussies turning to YouTube for advice, Australians dedicate an average of 17.1 hours a month to the video-sharing website.
Furthermore, the average length of time they spent on Instagram was 8.3 hours, while WhatsApp got only 5.8 hours of the Australian’s time.
23. Over one-quarter of Aussies visit ABC News Online, more than any other news site.
A survey conducted in January-February 2022 looked at what news brands adult internet users in Australia accessed, and this is what it found:
- ABC News Online—26% of users
- News.com.au—22%
- Nine.com.au—16%
- 7News.com.au—14%
- Guardian Australia Online—12%
- Skynews.com.au, smh.com.au, and BBC news online – 9% each
- Herald Sun and The Age – 7% each.
24. 19.85 million Australians are using the internet to pay for something.
The number of people using digital payments has increased by 1.2 million or 6.6% since 2021. The average Aussie spends around USD$4,036 for payments made online.
The total value of digital transactions Australians make a year is estimated at USD$80.10 billion. According to the latest figures from February 2022, the year-to-year change in the value of the transactions has increased by 41.3%, or USD$23 billion.
Social Media and Apps Statistics
25. There were 21.45 million active SM users in the country in February 2022.
(Genroe)
How many Australians use social media? 82.7% of the total Australian population had active social media accounts in early 2022. These figures have changed by 4.6% compared to the previous year.
Namely, social media demographics in Australia suggest that 96.4% of Aussies aged 16-64 accessed one of these networks in December 2020, but among seniors above that age, social media usage plummeted.
26. The main reason for using social media for 54.3% of Australians is to keep up with friends and family.
Other reasons Australians use the internet to access social media are filling in spare time (36.8%), reading news stories (26%), finding content (24.8%), looking for things to buy online or activities to do (22.4%), seeing what’s trending (20.9%) and for other entertainment purposes.
27. In Australia, Facebook Messenger is the most used communication app in 2022 so far.
The top mobile applications used for messaging Down Under are:
- Facebook Messenger – 79%
- WhatsApp – 37%
- FaceTime – 34%
- IMessage –28%
- Snapchat – 26%
Other mobile apps that are used by less than 25% of Aussies are Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Skype, Google Hangouts, and Signal.
28. 65.03% of the web referral traffic comes from Facebook.
Australian social media statistics reveal that Facebook holds more than half of the referral links Aussies click on to visit third-party websites. Right behind it, is Twitter with 13.53%, Printerest with 7.91%, which is closely followed by 6.80% of Instagram and 2.35% from Youtube.
Logging Out Is Such Sweet Sorrow
Aussies are avid surfers—that much we know. Still, our main takeaway from these internet usage statistics is that they’re equally adept at navigating the unpredictable waters of the World Wide Web. And as new technologies in this area continue to make waves, the info above makes us confident that they’ll likewise be able to tackle the ebbs and flows of any future digital trends.
- Australian Communications and Media Authority
- Canstar Blue
- Genroe
- Internet activity report
- StatCounter
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
- tatista
- Statista
- Statista
- Statista
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- We are Social
- World Bank
